132 HUME V 



mental states which occurs is such as would be 

 represented in language by a series of propositions, 

 and would afford proof positive of the existence 

 of innate ideas, in the Cartesian sense. Indeed, a 

 metaphysical fowl, brooding over the mental 

 operations of his fully-fledged consciousness, might 

 appeal to the fact as proof that, in the very first 

 action of his life, he assumed the existence of the 

 Ego and the non-Ego, and of a relation between 

 the two. 



In all seriousness, if the existence of instincts be 

 granted, the possibility of the existence of innate 

 ideas, in the most extended sense ever imagined 

 by Descartes, must also be admitted. In fact, 

 Descartes, as we have seen, illustrates what he 

 means by an innate idea, by the analogy of here- 

 ditary diseases or hereditary mental peculiarities, 

 such as generosity. On the other hand, hereditary 

 mental tendencies may justly be termed instincts ; 

 and still more appropriately might those special 

 proclivities, which constitute what we call genius, 

 come into the same category. 



The child who is impelled to draw as soon as it 

 can hold a pencil ; the Mozart who breaks out into 

 music as early ; the boy Bidder who worked out 

 the most complicated sums without learning 

 arithmetic; the boy Pascal who evolved Euclid 

 out of his own consciousness : all these may be 

 said to have been impelled by instinct, as much as 

 are the beaver and the bee. And the man of 



